Bio

Andy Douglas is the author of The Curve of the World: Into the Spiritual Heart of Yoga. He was born in Brazil to missionary parents, and travel and spiritual practice have shaped his life ever since. He has practiced yoga and meditation for thirty years, and lived for seven years in various countries of Asia. After returning from Korea in 1990, he worked as a journalist and public radio announcer, before receiving a bachelors’ degree in Anthropology from the University of Iowa. In 2005, he received an MFA in Creative Writing, also from the University of Iowa, where he was the recipient of the Marcus Bach Fellowship for Writing about Religion and Culture. His essays, stories and translations have appeared in Mary, New Renaissance, J Journal, Fogged Clarity, Nimrod, Pisgah Review, Bayou, and The Examined Life. He received a full fellowship for residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and has also had residencies at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center and the Prairie Center of the Arts. He’s active in peace, economic justice and prison issues, and sings in a choir with prisoners. His partner, Lois, and he both live in Iowa City, Iowa. He has a love for film, music, and literature.

From the Memoir

"I saw this as a commitment to something beyond my own eternally needy self: a life of strict daily practices, of actively loving God. And it had clicked for me—I’d been swept happily along within a magnificent current of grace and clarity."

"I felt cut off, anguished, unable to find my place in the world. Perhaps this sense of disconnection was a result of growing up a sensitive soul in Texas with its rough dog-eat-dogie ethos. Or perhaps it was simply something I carried within me from long back, a seed that demanded to be seen through to fruition, whether that end be bitter or sweet."

"What had started out for me as therapeutic necessity—a distant light to pull me from my darkness—was slowly building into an abiding spiritual urge. This was an important shift."

"Cal, I later heard the city called. Into Cal poured the great British train lines and Indian Air lines as well as the poleboats, with their boatmen yodeling songs of the Gangetic plains. Above Cal, the smog of thousands of taxis and millions of cookfires drifted. Through Cal shot a new subway line, fractured because of poor workmanship and heavy rains soon after its inception. Because of Cal, because of who was in Cal, I came. And in spite of Cal, I would stay."

"The look lasted for only a few seconds. Then Baba turned and the world began spinning again. I didn’t want to talk to anyone and wandered off down the street to be alone. I wanted only to hold on to this sweetness for as long as possible, to hoard it, store it, and flow away into a new realm on the waves generated by that indescribable compassionate gaze."